Study On The Mineral/Polymer Super Absorbent Composite

Super absorbents can absorb a large amount of water compared with general water absorbing materials in which the absorbed water is hardly removable even under some pressure. It is a newly developed functional macromolecule materials in recent 30 years. It is applied widely in many domains such as: agriculture and forestry, horticulture, medical treatment, sanitation, architecture, commodity, grocery and environment. The more important role is played in lots of fields recently and a huge market potential is forecasted. Study on super absorbent polymer starts in 1980' s in China. Compared with other developed countries, China lies in underway stage no matter in products development or in market application.Mineral-polymer super absorbent composite have a good development potential in super absorbent. Based on expanded vermiculite as mineral raw material and acrylamide(AM), acrlia acid(AA) as organic reaction monomer copolymer compound material is prepared in aqua-solution method. On one hand, simplified craft and addition of expanded vermiculite can reduce production costs effectively; on the other hand, the addition of expanded vermiculite can improve comprehensive absorbing ability of super absorbent.Expanded vermiculite/polymer super absorbent were synthesized by aqueous solution polymerization with N, N' -methylene bisacrylamide as cross-linker, ammonium persulfate as initiator, acrylic acid and acrylamide as monomers. The effects of amounts of cross-linker, initiator, neutralization degree, temperature and expanded vermiculite on water absorbency were researched. The results showed that cross-linker of 0.12wt%, initiator of 1.4wt%, neutralization degree of 85%, monomer concentration of 50wt% and temperature of 80℃were the best conditions when the amount of expanded vermiculite is 30wt%, the water absorbency is up to 480g/g. IR SEM and XRD were used to characterize the structure and constitutes of super absorbent composite.Expanded vermiculite/polymer super absorbent has a good consistency with the soil and it is hard to decay, so they have prospect applications in agriculture and forestry, horticulture, and environmental protection.